Monday, April 12, 2010

Drawing Music :: Philip Glass @ LPR and Saudade @ The Stone

My friend and music connoisseur Sasha M. took me along on two very different and moving shows this past Sunday. Completely impromptu & completely awesome, as impromptus usually go. The first was at The Stone: a trio with Cyro Baptista on percussion, Shanir Ezra Blumenkranz on upright bass and Tim Sparks on guitar, playing unique acoustic guitar renditions from latest Tzadik release "Little Princess".

Tim Sparks talked beautifully in between the songs; he talked about the origins of tunes and how they tied into the history of Jewish diaspora, about etymology...This particular tune, called "keys from spain", was a story of Sephardic Jews who were expelled from Spain in 1492 and stayed in the Balkans. Many kept their keys to houses in hopes of coming back one day to reclaim their homes.

The style of music is called Saudade (a feeling of nostalgic longing in Portugese), which goes back to Arabic "Sauda", translating as "bile". Apparently, ancient folks thought the feelings came from your LIVER, and they equated dark or sad emotions to that substance in the gut.

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Then off we were for a completely different mood: an orchestra at Le Poisson Rouge, playing compositions of Philip Glass. The composer himself was there.

His music really moved me, and I found his soundtracks incredibly colorful and moody.

One of the melodies sounded like a million butterflies took off at once in gleaming sun rays.

s e a r c h

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"I believe that in theindeterminacy of drawing,the contingent way thatimages arrive in the work,lies some kind of modelof how we live our lives.The activity of drawingis a way of trying tounderstand who we areand how we operatein the world. "~William Kentridge